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122 points kcon | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.259s | source

Nissan's official mobile app for their LEAF electric car doesn't have a widget for quickly checking the car's battery charge status on your phone's home screen, so for a fun side project I decided to make my own using free tools like GitHub Actions, Appium, Tailscale, and Apple Shortcuts.
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STELLANOVA ◴[] No.43677779[source]
Great work! I love commitment to make it at no cost as @liamwire mentioned. Still not sure why on Earth car manufacturers would not just release APIs open to all owners (basically issue API key based on VIN) and let them use it. For developers to build apps that will only require API key to be entered would be win/win for everyone....
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xp84 ◴[] No.43678448[source]
> Still not sure why on Earth car manufacturers

Like all similar "why don't they have at least a self/community-supported open basic API" questions, the answer is usually the same: They're afraid someone else might create something of value, in part using their API, without them getting their own beaks wet in the process. If you want to integrate with a Nissan Leaf, even if all you wanted were the most harmless read-only access, they'd like you to request a biz dev meeting with them where they'll be happy to talk ruinous terms.

For a related story, see how Chamberlain (MyQ) torched the great, community-built Home Assistant integration it once had for no reason at all. They're afraid somehow they could stop getting the kickbacks from the likes of Walmart and Amazon delivery which they enjoy today, seeing themselves as co-owners of your garage door.

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smokel ◴[] No.43678540[source]
> They're afraid someone else might create something of value, in part using their API, without them getting their own beaks wet in the process.

In most cases it's not about profit, but about having to invest serious amounts of effort to please one or two hackers, who will then DoS your API as soon as you've made a mistake.

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xp84 ◴[] No.43687614[source]
Well, that certainly is the disingenuous corporate line. But the 'hackers' required nothing of Chamberlain -- what they built was already working, until they played a cat-and-mouse game to block them until the maintainer gave up. There are hundreds of companies that do support Home Assistant integrations or at least let them exist, and maintainers are always eager to fix any issue that comes up.

It's really not a dichotomy between aggressively blocking users from having any control over their own home, vs. some kind of imaginary concierge red carpet public API service that hijacks the company's product roadmap. The open source community will basically do 100% of the work for any firm which doesn't opt to actively sabotage.

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1. ◴[] No.43689542[source]